Extreme Girls on Concrete

by Margarett Dykstra

Carrie's militant attitude about the importance of safety equipment is no accident. She keeps her protective gear fully challenged when she skates. As I was talking to Carrie, she was having her cast painted by a local artist. She broke her arm grinding on her rail. She's a vert skater trying to learn better street skating moves. She was wearing her wrist guards when she fell, but her arm decided to break anyway. (Did you know that the wrist guards don't actually protect you from breaking your wrist, they just help guarantee a nice clean break rather than a bunch of crushed bones?)
"Did you know your head bounces?" I have never felt my head bounce on pavement, so I didn't know this, but apparently it does and hers did. Her most disappointing injury occurred last year right before the NISS finals when she fell from the top of a vert ramp onto her shoulder and hurt her rotator cuff. Yeow! These injuries don't seem to slow her down any though. She told me that she skated vert yesterday in spite of the fact that her arm was in a cast. "It was scary, because you need to be relaxed, comfortable and able to fall--I was none of those things."

"Tell everyone to wear gear and helmets...It's just something you have to get used to...The more people get hurt, the more law suits are going to happen and the more skating will get banned."

Carrie skates with Team Performance, an aggressive skate team comprised of some of Florida's best. Carrie is the only girl on the team and handles all of their business affairs. The team skates together at shows, demos and competitions, promoting the sport, giving lessons and safety instruction. She trains at Badlands, a local skate park, where she is working on miller flips, mute 360s and a sad plant. Although Carrie enjoys the heat of competition, she believes that the girls should stick together and push each other. "Skaters are skaters, but with girls there is an extra bound." She loves to skate and wants more girls to get involved. She said with a giggle as I hung up the phone, "Girls Rule! More girls must skate, 'cause it's cool!"